Madame Adelaide Bonfamille
Madame Adelaide Bonfamille is one of the minor protagonists from Disney's 1970 feature film the Aristocats. She is a wealthy, elderly woman who is the owner of Duchess and her kittens. Background Madame Bonfamille, often simply called Madame, is an elderly, wealthy woman, who apparently was a famous opera singer at one point (she said that she once played the title character of George Bizet's Carmen, and was even seen dancing to the aria "Habanera"). She is very kind and generous. At the time of the film, however, she had no living relatives, thus she doted on her cats. Her other friends included her lawyer, Georges Hautecourt, and her butler, Edgar Balthazar. Despite her old age, Madame Bonfamille is actually quite beautiful (see below). Madame has long, silvery-white hair, usually worn up in a Gibson Girl-style bun (except when she is sleeping, where it extends down to below her shoulders, though she wears a night bonnet while asleep), and wears a violet-red Edwardian Era dress. When she is sleeping, she wears a long lavender nightgown including a purple bonnet and a pink dressing gown. Personality She is sweet, kind, happy, friendly, polite, honest, caring, and vain (though not distatestfully so). She loves her cats dearly, and is unaware of Edgar's evil schemes. Her main downfall is that she's too trusting. Role in the film At the beginning of the film, she is seen in her carriage, driven by Edgar, with her cats. Upon returning home, it is revealed that she is expecting her lawyer and long time friend Georges Hautecourt to come to handle some business matters. After he arrives, she tells Georges that she wants to make out her will. She notes that she has no living relatives, only her cats and Edgar, which Georges interprets to mean that she is leaving her extensive fortune to Edgar. Madame corrects him, revealing her plan to leave the fortune to Duchess and the kittens. Edgar is to care for the cats until their death, when he will inherit the vast wealth himself. Unknown to Georges and Madame, Edgar has overheard her intentions through the pipes. Fearful that he will be dead before he can inherit, he kidnaps the cats and drops them off in the French countryside. Madame is noticeably saddened and worried by the cats' sudden disappearance, but does not know that Edgar kidnapped them, after waking up in the middle of that stormy night and checking on the cats' bed (which is revealed to be empty by a flash of lightning from outside) after appearing to have a nightmare about them. Much later, Madame thinks she has heard the kittens, and rushes to check the door, bringing Edgar with her. Unknown to her, Edgar has heard the kittens earlier, and had trapped them in an old oven, until he could get rid of them again, and Madame sorrowfully returns to her house. However the cats are rescued from Edgar by O'Malley and all return safely. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Madame has adopted O'Malley, citing the need for a man around the house. While taking a portrait of the cats, she laments that Edgar left (actually, the cats got rid of him by shoving him into a trunk headed for Timbuktu and sending him there), ironically thinking that he wouldn't have left had he known about the will. Per her instructions, Edgar is written out of the will. Instead, Madame begins a foundation that opens up her home for the alley cats of Paris, which is revealed to already include Scat Cat and his gang of alley cats. ''House of Mouse'' Madame Bonfamille appears as a small cameo with Georges Hautecourt in the House of Mouse series. Trivia * Her overall appearance resembles that of Lady Tremaine. Both even own cats (Lady Tremaine is Lucifer's owner). However, their personalities and goals are drastically different. And while Madame Bonfamille serves as a minor character in The Aristocats, Lady Tremaine plays a bigger role in Cinderella. Also, both characters are polar opposites; Madame Bonfamille is a hero while Lady Tremaine is a villain. * The name "Bonfamille" is derived from the French phrase for "good family" ("bon" being the masculine word for "good" and "famille" meaning "family," though "famille" is feminine, so the right way would have been "bonne famille"). Gallery Tumblr lcir960GWT1qbrdf3o1 500.jpg Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-23.jpg Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-38.jpg Aristocats-disneyscreencaps.com-128.jpg Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-148.jpg Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-350.jpg Aristocats-disneyscreencaps com-491.jpg Madame Adelaide Bonfamille.jpg Madame Adelaide Bonfamille close Up.jpg Madame Adelaide Bonfamille in Mirror.jpg MAB1.jpg MAB2.jpg February5th.png|Madame Adelaide Bonfamille's page in Disneystrology AristocatsMadamePhonograph.jpg|Madame Bonfamille and her beloved cats listening to records MadameBonfamilleKA.jpg|Madame Bonfamille by Ken Anderson PA - Story Board Art 01.jpg|Madame Adelaide as she would have appeared in Princess Academy Tumblr mzbu9mKtiT1qhcrb0o1 1280.jpg Tumblr n39vcfgAwi1qhcrb0o1 1280.jpg Georges Hautecourt 7.jpeg Category:Females Category:Disney characters Category:Characters Category:The Aristocats characters Category:Heroines Category:French characters Category:Adults Category:Animated characters Category:Elderly characters Category:Nobility Category:House of Mouse characters Category:Characters in the Disney animated features canon